Lost dog captured after living in North Vancouver’s woods for six months

Kevin Griffin and Christopher Reynolds, Vancouver Sun12.15.2012

Petsearchers Canada team members Parker, Alesha and Al MacLellan with Cody the lost dog at their Surrey home on Friiday, December 14, 2012. They caught Cody after he'd been lost in the North Shore wilderness for over six months.Les Bazso
/ PNG

Petsearchers Canada team members Al and Alesha MacLellan hug Cody, a dog that went missing in North Vancouver more than six months ago. They had been searching for the dog since October and finally captured him Friday. Cody will go back to its owner Saturday after a vet check.Les Bazso
/ VANCOUVER SUN

A dog lost in the woods of North Vancouver for six-and-a-half months was found Friday afternoon by a husband-and-wife pet detective team.

Cody, a four-year-old flat-coated black retriever, went missing in May in a wooded area near Dollarton Highway and the Seymour River while he was being walked off-leash by the son of his owner.

“Finding him is just this feeling of absolute elation, knowing we can bring him back home to (his owner),” said Alesha MacLellan, one half of Petsearchers Canada, the company behind the hunt for Cody.

MacLellan said her company, which specializes in catching lost dogs and cats, had been working on capturing Cody since late October. She and her husband laid seven wire traps and snare traps — “kind of like what you seen in the cartoons, with the meat on the ground and the weight in the tree” — in the thick woods of Cutter Island Park, where Cody had been spotted.

“We’ve tried numerous baited traps but he’s very intelligent. He won’t put himself into a situation where he’s at risk of getting caught or feels vulnerable,” MacLellan said Friday morning, before the capture.

The MacLellans usually uses bloodhounds because of their ability to follow a scent, but couldn’t use them for Cody because he was in a fairly confined area for so long, she said. His scent was distributed evenly rather than concentrated in a track, which a bloodhound could follow.

As an alternative, the pair set up four motion sensor cameras to trace his stalking grounds. After several hundred hours of detective work that involved rising daily at 5 a.m. to track Cody, entice him with regular meals of chicken and the smell of bacon and re-accustom him to the presence of humans, the MacLellans got their chance.

Placing bait near the Dollarton Highway bridge by the Seymour River on Friday afternoon, Alesha hunkered down behind some rocks with her dogcatcher’s net and her husband not far away with his.

“As soon as I saw him I phoned (Al) and I began moving toward Cody. We both had extra-large, heavy duty nets, one of which Cody broke trying to get free,” she said. “He started running toward me and I tried to get him and then he ran toward my husband.

The pair swung their nets, capturing the dog.

Cody struggled initially under the mesh, then “pretty much surrendered and relaxed and ate some meat out of my husband’s hands,” MacLellan said.

“He already seems back to his old self. He doesn’t seem to have any of the feral-ness that he did in the wilderness, and that’s after only half a day. It’s really remarkable how resilient he is.

“He immediately found a pile of dirty laundry at our home (where he spent the night) and lay down and was comfy as could be.”

MacLellan didn’t want to reveal the owner’s name, but said she is an elderly woman living in West Vancouver.

Petsearchers charges $245 a day for foot searching and $595 when bloodhounds are added to the mix. “She’s been heartbroken waiting for him to come. She’s been waiting so long and hoping so much. Bringing him back home to where he belongs ... is the best feeling I think we’ll have had all year.”

MacLellan said Cody would see a vet Saturday and then be returned to his owner.

MacLellan said she and her husband had been preparing for a massive search Saturday morning with 75 to 100 volunteers to trap and return Cody before winter set in.

Cody had been living on his own over the summer, MacLellan said. He may have survived on salmon. There had also been up to 50 sightings of Cody walking or eating garbage.

“He’s extraordinarily skittish. Nobody can get near him,” she said earlier Friday, before the capture.

She said dogs on their own such as Cody go through a phase where they view humans as predators.

Stanley Coren, a University of B.C. professor emeritus of psychology and specialist in human-dog relations, said generally speaking, flat-coated retrievers are very friendly and affectionate dogs, but it could take time to re-socialize Cody.

“It’s going to take some patience,” he said. “It’s going to be three or four months before the dog is really fully re-socialized. That will depend on how he’s kept: if he was outdoors, it will be harder. If indoors, it will be a lot easier.”

The best way to deal with a dog that has been on its own for that long is to let it do the approaching once it is in a controlled situation at home, he said. He’ll need lots of food and talk and praise along the lines of “What a good dog!”

Coren thinks Cody shouldn’t be let off leash outside of the home for a year, or even longer. Even something as unexpected as a squirrel crossing its path could spook the dog and undo months of re-socialization, he said.

Meanwhile, in a separate lost dog incident in North Vancouver, Ellie Mae, a four-year-old bloodhound, was found Thursday afternoon after spending 10 days on her own in the woods. Owner Robert Pierce had Ellie Mae off leash on the Powerline Trail on Dec. 3, when a tree fell and spooked the dog, who ran off into the forest.

During the search for Ellie Mae, a search dog named Griffin got separated from his handler and went missing, said owner Maureen Fielding.

“It’s the most bizarre turn of events,” she said. “The rescue dog became the lost dog.”

Fielding said Griffin is a six-year-old, mixed breed, male dog that looks like a lean Labrador. He is black except for small white marks on his chest and muzzle and wears a black braided collar.

She said Griffin is suspicious of strangers and likely to run off if called by name. Griffin was last seen in the Canyon Heights area of North Vancouver.

Fielding is asking anyone who spots Griffin to call her at 604-618-3205.

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Lost dog captured after living in North Vancouver’s woods for six months

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